Chapter Thirty-Four: Adrift
The first time it happened, she was barely four years old. The rusted, heavy doors of her room at the orphanage fell in on her as she struck them in a fit of rebellious anger - she was nearly crushed.
The first brush with death.
It would come to be one of many hundreds of near-misses, but each successive instance would only cause Tigress to revel in her own mortality more and more. Shifu and Oogway had always taught that life was to be cherished, but that one must never lose sight of how fragile it truly was. She had always done her best to live accordingly; death was to be always respected, but never feared.
Of all the ways she had tried to conjure up in her mind over the years, she never could have predicted the sort of end that had faced her - at the hands of a Mongol, no less. She had done no small amount of killing herself in her final stand, and Tigress figured that perhaps it was only fair that things had concluded in such a manner - stabbed over and over by the very object responsible for their numerous months of suffering and tribulation. She hardly regretted her actions, though. If there was even a slight chance that the others had managed to survive, it was worth it to her.
There had to be at least some peace to be found in the end of all things, the routine stresses and toils of life coming to a close. She worried about how the others would react to the news of her passing, and regretted all that she had left unsaid to them. Especially Shifu. All of the missed opportunities to truly speak her mind, those needlessly-empty moments in life that at the time seem trivial - they now loomed incomprehensibly large. There would be no more chances now, she presumed.
The only question she truly had was why her current flow of consciousness was still ongoing. Wasn't she supposed to be dead, after all?
Interesting.
Tigress attempted to feel her surroundings, but there was seemingly no sensory feedback of any kind. She did, however, have a general perception that she was… floating? Yes. She was suspended somehow, thoroughly immersed in some imperceptible medium.
The silence of her thoughts was interrupted. A hollow gong rang out across the infinite expanse of the ethereal plane; her eyes opened once more, as if they had been commanded to do so by a timeless summons. She found herself lying flat in the embrace of a vast sea of what appeared to be water - but there was no aqueous feel gracing her limbs. Perhaps her eyes had deceived her, and she was not truly here. She tried to rise from her back, and perplexingly, did so with little effort. No effort, actually.
Not sinking… okay, then.
Below where she stood, the sea seemed to reach endless depths, but it refused to consume her. She tried to take a step forward, and was successful. The sea was almost entirely calm, flattening towards the horizon in all directions. Seeing things to now be fairly arbitrary, she picked a random heading and began casually water-walking along the rippled waves. Every now and again, she would notice flowers - lotus blossoms in fact - floating along the surface of the unusual sea. They were peculiar in that they were colored only in black and white, whereas the "water" seemed to be an exuberant teal and the "skies" were a hearty mix of orange and gold.
Just for the mere amusement of it, Tigress began to pick up speed. Now running over the waves, she saw that this place truly did seem to go on forever - same sea, same sky, same damned flowers floating all over the place. She was not quite sure what to make of it all yet, but she had one suspicion above all others.
So this is the Spirit Realm, I guess.
It was certainly beautiful, but also much more empty than she had envisioned. Po's recounting of his battle with Kai and encounter with Oogway had made the place sound significantly more interesting. After several minutes of this, she decided that there was no use in rushing, as it could be presumed that she had all the time in the world now. If this was indeed the afterlife, it was certainly quite boring.
She didn't know how long it had been - hours, days, weeks - it was impossible to tell. Tigress just kept walking along, gradually growing accustomed to the fact that she was effortlessly traversing a fluid ground at all times. When she saw something at last, she refused to believe it at first. Wandering about the void for so long had made her more than a little pessimistic about the odds of coming across anything at all. A dark blur on the horizon was still growing larger with each passing minute, as if she was slowly gaining on something.
Is that… a ship? What use is one of those when you can't even sink?
It appeared as if her eyes had not been deceiving her after all. It was a ship, and more interesting still, it was a ship that she had seen before. Years before.
You've got to be joking.
The wide sail of the ship's mainmast was emblazoned with the unmistakable peacock symbol of the exiled Lord of Gongmen. Even here, in this place where nothing seemed to matter, nor even register upon her senses, Tigress managed to feel a bristling unease overtake herself. Still, this was the only vessel or sizable object of any kind she had seen since arriving in this place, so she continued her approach. Nothing to be afraid of now, anyways.
The oversized junk flagship was weighted down greatly by what had been the centerpiece of the peacock's vile arsenal: the dragon-headed cannon, the largest that had ever been constructed. Briefly extracting her claws and latching on to the wooden hull as it passed her by, Tigress clamored aboard with ease.
And there he was.
It was strange - she had almost expected the wayward vessel to be abandoned entirely. But there he was, the peacock lord himself, standing at the raised platform helm of the massive junk; he was its lone occupant. Tigress wasn't sure what to do; this was never a scenario she had ever conceivably believed herself to be placed in, given that she had once watched her hated enemy be literally crushed to death in Gongmen Harbor. The lord no longer wore his typical white robes, the garments having been replaced by a somber night-black raiment.
The two just looked at each other for a time.
"You." she said in an accusatory tone at last.
There was a pause as Lord Shen subtly shook his head, clearly just as surprised as she was that this meeting had occurred.
"You." he returned just the same.
Even in the supposed afterlife, Tigress didn't have the time for any pleasantries - a disposition with which the peacock could empathize, no doubt.
"So I guess this confirms it…" she began, looking at him with an air of disgust, "I really am-"
"Dead?" Shen interrupted, smiling in that uncannily fiendish way that only he could. "Not exactly. To the contrary - I'd say it's a little worse than that, actually."
Tigress did not let her confusion come to the surface, only showing contempt upon her features for the bird who had once inflicted such suffering upon others.
"Worse? What could be worse than death?" she questioned. "This is the Spirit Realm, is it not? I watched you die."
"The Spirit Realm? Such an unimaginative name… pssh." the peacock teased. "But to answer your question: yes, and no."
"Make some sense, if you don't mind."
"You are not dead - but rather - cursed from death. There is no true peace here. We inhabit but a single strata of what you call the Spirit Realm or the ethereal plane - or whatever such nonsense you prefer."
Tigress raised a brow at this statement, genuinely curious more than angry for the first time since their conversation had begun.
"Cursed, you say?"
"Yes, yes!" Shen said with an eager nod as he strutted down the steps of the raised helm. "The Realm of the Prophetically Cursed, that is where you find yourself now."
The peacock kept advancing towards her in a way that made Tigress uncomfortable, now upon the lower decks where the great weapon was straddled.
"Smoke and mirrors from a goat, that is what has landed me - us - in this current hellscape." Shen said with furious arrogance, now running the feathers of his wing along the great iron barrel of his malevolent masterpiece. "Crushed to death by my own work of art… it's so poetically ironic; there are some days when I'm not even that upset about it."
"Had plenty of time to dwell on it, have you?" Tigress taunted, trying her best to hide her unease brought on by the peacock's psychopathic monologuing.
Shen stopped in stride now, eyes widening with a uniquely profound madness.
"All the time in the world." he said through a smile. "All the time in the world, and beyond."
Tigress maintained her composure, "This meeting of ours - it's no coincidence, is it?"
"Of course not!" Shen answered abruptly, almost offended by her asking. "The only reason anything happens here is because the lord of this realm finds it to be profoundly ironic - and in this such instance - I must say… I agree."
Tigress bared her teeth slightly. There were few people she hated as much as Shen. The sole consolation she had held was that she never should have had to see him ever again.
"The lord of this realm? And who might that be?"
The disgraced prince tilted his head in reply, as if disappointed that she was not already aware of the inner workings of the place she had so briefly resided within.
"So you truly don't know? Fascinating!"
Tigress' patience was now long gone, growling as she struck at him - but her arm phased right through the peacock as if he wasn't there.
Of course. I should have known.
It seemed that in this place - whatever it was - one could neither be harmed nor harm other celestial inhabitants.
Shen frowned at her in a mocking way, "Aww… Very disappointing, I know!"
The tiger master just rolled her eyes. This really was making out to be a fate worse than death. She still had little clue what shared bond she might have with someone truly prophetically cursed like Lord Shen. The coward had been so ruled by his own fear of destiny that he had been the one to set it in motion; a downfall of his design from the very beginning.
"Trust me - I have tried to do it myself thousands of times. It is of no use." the bird said, still smiling. "There is but one route out of this place, and he is it."
"Tell me, then!" Tigress demanded. "Who is this lord you speak of?"
Ever the dramatic scoundrel, Shen waited several moments before answering; he savored the tiger's irritated impatience as he folded his wings behind himself.
"The God of Wind - the Lord of Chaos itself. Fei Lian." he announced proudly. "You are in his domain now."
As if on cue, an overwhelming flash of the strange figure from her dreams overcame Tigress, and she nearly buckled over entirely. In a single momentary realization - so many things made sense. It was him. It had always been him. The dreams… the Dagger of Deng-Wa.
The Wind.
"Yes…" Shen mused, seeing the progression of emotions upon her face and knowing all too well what she was experiencing. "Now you see!"
"You-" she struggled to piece words together, "You cannot be serious!"
Shen had not changed his expression in the slightest.
Tigress looked down to the wood deck of the long-doomed flagship, gathering herself briefly. She had heard that name before, but only in children's fairy tales and legends. There was a bittersweet mix of simultaneous realizations in her mind, seeing now that she had an incredibly powerful enemy, but also recognizing that her struggle was not yet over. There were moves still remaining in the game that she'd assumed concluded the moment Yuelen had struck her for the final time.
Okay then.
She looked back to the peacock, "Fine. It's a god, then. You said before that we're not dead - that means there must be a way out of this place."
Shen exhaled as if about to laugh before staring her down, "But of course! You need only find him - the Lord of the Winds greatly enjoys interfering in the affairs of mortals. There is no better way for him to do so than sending those that should have died back to the mortal realm!"
The tiger master pieced together the implication quickly, matching his stare.
"If that is so, then why are you still here? You've been dead for years."
The bearing of the proud Lord of Gongmen changed at last, as he looked back towards his own reflection in the metal sheen of his great weapon. Seeing his own features, he seemed to be unable to face it and turned back towards the seaward rail of the ship. His lack of an answer said everything Tigress needed to know.
"Ah." the tiger expressed with new confidence. "I should have expected nothing less from a coward such as you."
Shen did not react with hostility as she had anticipated. He just stared out at the infinite stretches of gentle teal waves.
"My mother…" Shen began and immediately trailed off, seeming to do his best to choose his words carefully. "She used to always say when I was young, that every new dawn… it was a new chance to forget the past."
"You should have listened." Tigress said without hesitation, having no empathy for a genocidal maniac like him.
Shen said nothing at first in reply, "Hmph. There are no dawns here. Always the same golden sky. It's infuriating."
Tigress was unintimidated, pacing up next to the peacock lord.
"Do not try to get me to pity you. You don't know me, but I know you - you were a Lord of China. Everything you could have ever desired would have been yours. You had parents that loved you, yet you scorned them."
The neck of the starkly-white bird turned away, and she could see a minor twinge of his facial features even from where she stood.
"I was an orphan; I had none of what you did. You rejected all you were given out of pure spite, and you will find no sympathy from me."
Shen turned back towards her at last with a look on his face that she had never seen there before.
"And I ask for none." he said as if admitting to a crime. "You asked why I am still here…"
He paused again in contemplation.
"I cut the ropes on purpose. I chose this - and I still choose it. There is no going back, and there never was."
Tigress shook her head and stepped up upon the railing of the ship overlooking the void, "Very well, but I will not forfeit my soul as you have."
The peacock looked up at her, seeing the tiger master preparing to depart once more into the unknown extents of the ether.
"Remember that you cannot ever escape the forces of prophecy." Shen said with an air of loss. "A warrior of black and white... that was always how I would be defeated."
The tiger looked down at him a final time, "Indeed. I see only one of those before me now - you. The hell you've found has always been one of your own creation, Lord of Gongmen."
With that, Tigress dropped from the edge of the ship - her eyes having been locked with his as she fell past the berm. The tiger master landed with a skid upon the waterline, dashing off again into the distance.
"That it is…" Shen said softly, watching her go. "That it is."
The tiger master strode forth with reborn determination. She would pursue this old enemy with a newfound name - Fei Lian - to the ends of his own accursed realm, if need be. In her wake, she left the great flagship to slowly fade into the horizon - forever adrift.
Author's Notes:
- Hey hey! Thanks for reading! This used to be chapter 33, I moved it to 34 for thematic purposes!
- My personal depiction of this section of the Spirit Realm is based less on the KFP 3 scenes and more on the opening DreamWorks title sequence from KFP 1
- It was so much fun to write Shen just this once, he is such an iconic villain, and a great character for fun dialogue opportunities!
- And at last, the true villain is revealed...
- Fei Lian is one of many Chinese gods and deities, and is the namesake of this story - hence all the numerous "wind" references since the very beginning (been waiting for this moment for a very long time haha)
- Thanks to all my friends, especially TayForce for beta-reading on the spot! Appreciate you guys!
- Until next time!
